Ted Fike

🚨NEW EPISODE: Recorded live at FUTURE TITANS 2026 - Jeff Perry of Carta sat down with the iconic Seth Levine, co-founder of Foundry. Seth has been in venture for 25 years, built Foundry from scratch as an emerging manager himself, and has backed about 50 emerging manager funds through his fund of funds. He has genuinely seen every side of this table. They went deep on building Foundry, why VCs are in the influence business, not the decision business, and why the concentration problem in venture is not only bad for LPs, but also for the innovation ecosystem overall. And why Seth's new book, Capital Evolution, is so important for the future of America. 🎧 Links to listen... Apple: https://lnkd.in/ehQUQ2EM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eU4FExpg

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Big milestone for Firmable. We’ve raised $14m Series A led by Airtree. Sales has moved through a few big waves: intuition-led, CRM-led, data-led. We’re now entering the next one – intelligence-led sales. The opportunity isn’t just better data. It’s turning that data into clear direction and action, without adding more work for sales teams. That’s what we’re building at Firmable: a foundation of trusted external data, layered with intelligence that helps sellers know who to focus on and when. Led by Airtree, this round supports our expansion across Asia and into the US – and accelerates the build-out of AI agents that take the admin work off sales teams so they can focus on what they do best. Proud of the team, grateful to our customers and investors. We’re just getting started. Read the exclusive in the AFR. https://lnkd.in/gr66uknb Leigh Jasper | Tara Salmon | Karthik Venkatasubramanian| Chester Thompson| Chath Widanapathirana

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I’ve spoken to over 2 dozen MDs at PE firms I can confidently say that the arb of figuring out how to implement Vertical AI at portfolio companies is very real right now It will fundamentally change underwriting for those who can do it predictably and unlock generational returns. Most are aware they need to act. Very few have.

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Here's a problem we see all the time in early studios: they copy-paste a VC fund's operating cadence and wonder why nothing feels right. Weekly deal flow reviews. Portfolio monitoring calls. Valuation-focused LP reports. All borrowed wholesale from a fund playbook. But a VC fund's primary activity is deal selection -- source, evaluate, check, board, wait. A studio's primary activity is venture creation -- generate, validate, recruit, build, launch. Those are fundamentally different jobs. When you run a studio like a fund, things break in specific ways: Your meetings are wrong. You're reviewing deal flow instead of venture build progress -- milestones, blockers, resource allocation. The work is building, not sourcing. Your team is wrong. Studios need builders at every level -- operators, designers, engineers. Not just investment professionals. You can't build companies with a team designed to pick them. 📉 Your metrics are wrong. Entry valuations and markups don't tell you anything useful. Cost-to-build-a-venture, time-to-market, and venture survival at 18 months -- those are the numbers that actually measure whether the studio is working. Your LP reporting is wrong. Report operational progress -- what's building, what's launching, what's been killed and why. Not just portfolio movements. Here's the lesson -- the studios that struggle most are the ones that adopted VC templates without modifying them for fundamentally different work. The portfolio companies don't exist until the studio creates them. Not a fund that happens to build things. A builder that happens to have a fund. The operating rhythm should reflect which one is primary. 🎯

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Broadcasters didn’t lose the audience. The audience outgrew the operating model built to reach them. And here’s the part most underestimate: Gen Z and Millennials now are the majority — and they spend 1.5–4× more on streaming, content, and eCommerce than older cohorts. This is the most valuable audience in media history, and they are accessible everywhere any time.. But they don’t tune in — they flow: short-form → YouTube → OTT. And the most counterintuitive insight? Your archive — not your newest show — is your biggest untapped growth engine. Algorithms reward relevance, not recency. Broadcasters that align with how the New Majority already behaves will lead the next decade. Check out my latest blog (and download the full white paper for the blue print operating model)

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Investors (esp deep tech investors) generally think about things/bet on "layers": the application, the infrastructure, the model. I think that's becoming the wrong way to look at it? The real opportunity is in the feedback loop *between* the layers. A new social app creates demand for new hardware, which in turn demands a new kind of intelligence - I'm calling it "The Agency Loop". My latest newsletter explores this thesis through three signals: the "weaponized transgression" of Cluey, the AI-driven materials science in Nature, and the architectural critiques of Kenneth Stanley. Bet the loop, not the layer :) You can read the full analysis here: https://lnkd.in/ggdVGEda #vibecap #vibecapital #vc #deeptech #AI #cluely

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Two weeks ago on Swimming with Allocators, we sat down with David Clark, CIO at VenCap, to talk about what decades of venture data can teach allocators. One takeaway that stood out: discounts don’t matter as much as people think in venture secondaries. Because venture is such a power-law asset class, outcomes are driven by exposure to a few massive winners. Whether a stake is bought at a small discount, or even a premium, often matters far less than the quality of the underlying company and its upside. Great conversation on venture returns, manager selection, and the nuances of how allocators should think about secondary investments. 👇 Link in the comments.

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🎙️ New Podcast Episode: A Deep Dive into the Ad Tech Ecosystem with Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify Really enjoyed this one! We had the pleasure of sitting down with Mark Zagorski for a wide-ranging conversation covering his incredible journey including trade sales, a merger, an IPO, and major acquisitions of comapnies like OpenSlate, Scibids, and Rockerbox. From the evolution of the LumaScape to the convergence of the buy and sell sides, Mark breaks down how the ad tech ecosystem is transforming — and how DoubleVerify is moving well beyond brand safety into measurement, pre-bid optimisation, and the emergence of what we like to call Super Signal Aggregators (SSAs). We also talked about DV’s strategic investment into FirstPartyCapital — their first-ever VC fund investment — and why they see it as a way to fuel innovation, access early-stage tech, and deepen partnerships with the next generation of ad tech pioneers. 👇 Link in the comments. #AdTech #MarTech #VentureCapital #Measurement #Optimisation #SSA #DoubleVerify #FirstPartyCapital #FPCpodcast

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The SMS interactions between brand & consumer contain incredibly rich context for 1:1 personalized commerce experiences. Postscript is the platform enabling such experiences. On this week's episode, Rishabh and I sat down with Adam Turner to explore how SMS evolved from an abandoned-cart afterthought to a 1:1 sales & marketing channel. We covered: - Category creation and the rise of the “SMS marketer” - Compliance and quality as product design principles - Moving from broadcast to conversational journeys - Building distribution in the Shopify ecosystem, then scaling a sales-led motion - Where AI has augmented vs reinvented both marketing products and teams Link in comments

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🦄 $150M to improve tutoring and education globally. Preply just announced a new round, putting the company on a clear trajectory to become an iconic global marketplace. In a world obsessed with fast wins and volatile growth, some companies quietly beat their goals year after year — for more than 6 years in this case (as long as we’ve at Acurio Ventures been partners). A few learnings from this journey, relevant for founders and investors: Pick a growing market with an unsolved problem. 2 out of 8 billion people globally are learning a second language. Despite many options, outcomes are still poor. Our original thesis was simple: if you build the reference platform, everyone who wants to learn will eventually come to you. Category leadership matters. When we backed Kirill Bigai and Dmytro Voloshyn back in 2019 (together with Rob Kniaz), there were dozens of similar startups. Small details showed Preply had already built a superior tutor base and a scalable growth engine. Build a product customers love. Speaking a language and teaching it are very different things. Preply transformed the learning experience by combining a motivated base of +100,000 tutors with tools that actually drive outcomes. Never stop experimenting. Few companies maintain a strong experimentation culture as they scale. Preply’s DNA reminded me of Booking.com — enabling them to execute 10x better than most marketplaces. Great companies turn every change into an opportunity. From riding the post-COVID shift to online learning, to betting early and heavily on AI as Dmytro Voloshyn has excelled at. What once sounded like sci-fi is now reality. Great companies become talent magnets A company maturity can't be addressed only by looking at the revenue, profit or product. I like to see how much better they become at attracting talent and retaining it. Proud that Acurio Ventures made this possible and the WestCap team saw things as bullish as we do and are now supporting the next phase of Preply’s journey. Huge congratulations to the entire Preply team!!

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Every hire, product feature, and GTM experiment is a capital allocation decision, most teams just don’t call it that. I’m kicking off a 3-part series on capital allocation for founders, operators, and finance leaders with a simple question: ➡️ Will the next $1 you deploy become worth more than $1? Series overview Part 1: defines the core concept + the math Part 2: where capital goes + how to measure whether it’s working Part 3: AIMS framework for communicating allocation decisions to management teams and your board Part 1 (attached here) lays the practical foundation: 🔹 The $1 invested test and ROIIC vs. hurdle rates (scoreboard vs. decision lens) 🔹 A lightweight “investment brief” to evaluate bets (GROW / BUILD / BUY) 🔹 The small metric toolkit that translates finance into operating decisions (NPV / payback / ROIIC / incremental margin) 🔹 Early-stage proxies when DCF inputs are unknowable (burn multiple + revenue quality) 🔹 Operator “vital signs” to spot drift early (profit engine, leverage, cash conversion, optics) Series Roadmap ✔️ This series (Parts 1–3): breadth-first. shared, lightweight framework to define value creation, choose decision-grade metrics, and communicate tradeoffs clearly ✔️ Next series: depth-first. momentum drivers + operational decisions that need near real-time measurement to spot drift early and course-correct fast Read Part 1 here and Part 2 and 3 on substack. Next Series will be out next week. 💰 What’s one bet you’re funding right now, and how will you prove it’s working?

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What do Roblox, Anduril, CrowdStrike and Apple all have in common? None of them looked like obvious winners from the start. But they built something far bigger than anyone expected. We call these companies Modelbusters. Modelbusters either reveal a market that’s much larger than anticipated, or expand into new product lines so effectively that they break out of their original category entirely. We’re talking about modelbusters now because we believe AI is creating many more of them. AI may be the defining platform shift of our time. It’s changing how products are built, how they’re distributed, and how buying decisions get made. It’s creating new consumer experiences, new workflows, and entirely new business models. Platform shifts often create new winners. AI is no exception. Today’s most ambitious companies will grow faster and become bigger than anything we’ve seen before. In the new Andreessen Horowitz Growth Substack, Santiago Rodriguez Lebrija and I unpack what makes a modelbuster, why they matter, and how to know if you’re building one. In the first edition, I break down modelbusters. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/ggJMTsiB

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The Headline family is experiencing incredible momentum, and today our portfolio company DeepIP is announcing a $25M Series B, bringing total funding to $40M.  This is the kind of company that doesn’t just add AI to a workflow, but it sets the standard for an entire category. The momentum speaks for itself: 1️⃣ 10x ARR growth in < 18 months 2️⃣ Trusted by 400+ law firms and leading corporate IP teams globally 3️⃣ 2M+ chats on the DeepIP platform We’ve had the chance to back FX (Francois-Xavier) L. and Edouard D., leading their Seed round with Headline. Watching them take on a problem as complex and high-stakes as patent work has been genuinely impressive. And working with them has been an absolute pleasure: these 2 are coupling very high ambition and humility. Tech built in Europe, but opening the US office very early and FX starting a life in NYC with his family with 0 hesitation in order to build a global category leader in the IP industry. What convinced me early is still what stands out today: patent teams don’t need another standalone AI tool. They need something that fits the way the work actually happens: documents, long-running matters, multiple stakeholders, and zero room for sloppy context handoffs. Big congrats to the whole DeepIP team + Korelya Capital, Balderton & Serena Proud that we’re doubling down at Headline and continuing the support for what’s next!

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Thrilled for OVNI Capital to be backing RIFT in a pre-seed round led by AlleyCorp (Luc Ryan-Schreiber). Rift is building the first real-time aerial intelligence network, a new layer of infrastructure for persistent, on-demand visibility where it matters most. This funding will scale production of their autonomous stations, accelerate deployment in high-stakes environments, and expand the team leading the next phase. 🗞️ Explore the full story: - StartupMafia: https://lnkd.in/dARrg25N - BFM Business (FR): https://lnkd.in/eADSUsn7 - Les Échos (FR): https://lnkd.in/eFG3zAy5 👨‍🚀 Join the mission → https://lnkd.in/erm_SrTG

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most interesting deals right now combine the defensibility of physicality (four walls, vertical integration, holding / moving / selling real things) with the velocity of tech, usually, but not always, ai. while its likely they wont trade at historical pure-play tech rev multiples, they can get to massive scale within tech timelines (<15 years) with minimal equity dilution (debt only past the seed or A)... so the math works out if you get in on the pre-seed. most importantly, they have actual defensibility-- a team of randos in india cannot vibe code physicality. 80% of deals I've done in the last couple years follow this pattern. I anticipate close to 100% in the future will. 

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MODELBUSTERS: a new category of companies I am personally the most excited about. The AI platform shift is underway. The stakes are higher, the pace is faster than ever. We wrote down some of our top learnings from the @a16z Growth team on what MODELBUSTERS are. These are the patterns we are seeing across the biggest winners in our portfolio. Stay ahead of the curve with our new team Substack! https://lnkd.in/gSNQgXGV

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I spoke with Christien Louviere of BDE Capital about his journey from a $330mm exit to becoming an independent sponsor. Christien shared excellent insights for folks looking to partner with business owners, rather than buy sellers out completely. Below are a few of the topics we covered: - Why he moved from “zero-to-one” startups to a buy-then-build strategy - How Christien's background shaped a focus on growth vs. cost-cutting - Why 20–40% rolled equity is central to his deal structures—and how it builds trust with sellers - Using scenario analysis with AI tools to evaluate management teams and uncover hidden key-person risks - How to identify when a $3–5M EBITDA company truly has a middle management layer—or is still founder-reliant For anyone investing in or buying small businesses, Christien’s approach provides a fresh lens on growth, alignment, and deal structuring. 🎥 Watch the full interview here → https://lnkd.in/ekfkaiej 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/e86Agx6V

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AI is blowing the doors off traditional advertising. Comcast, Roku, and Channel 4 are now giving small businesses the power to create TV-ready streaming ads without big budgets or creative agencies. What used to be a playground for major brands is becoming accessible to anyone with a product and a story. This episode breaks down how AI is reshaping the ad industry, what this means for local brands looking to scale, and whether this new wave of AI-generated commercials will spark creativity or just increase noise. For founders, the takeaway is clear: visibility is no longer gated by budget. It’s gated by how fast you adapt. #Startup #Founder #VC #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #AIMarketing #AdvertisingTech #StreamingAds #SmallBusinessGrowth #CreativeTech #MediaInnovation #StartupInsights

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